WEEK 6 – 8| ‘BUILD A WORLD’ PROJECT #3

CAVERNS OF CONFUSION: UNDERSTANDING CAMERA AND LIGHT

Weeks six to eight continued with Megan, Sudipta, Caitlin, Matthias and myself. It was implied in comments from the presentation that we should proceed with the ‘Caverns of Confusion’ element of the world, so that we were working on the same location and characters. Even the name itself suggested a movement away from reality (the sustained task throughout the module).

The class task; to visualize how camera and light acts in our world – due to my film background I was eager to communicate the ‘Caverns of Confusion’ using film language, principally cinematography (light, colour).

(above) Notes from class on values, halfway to black and cast shadows.

Unfortunately, I have to begin this post by stating our group did not communicate and our research does not match. I will still attempt to explain my work’s research, some of which was a desperate attempt to create some kind of connection between other’s work towards the end. On reflection, our group failed because it consisted of too many people who enjoyed working individually (including myself) and the mutual silence between us all meant we felt comfortable not discussing anything with each other until week eight. Perhaps somehow expecting it all to turn out O.K. in the end.

CONCEPT ART

I began using black and white tones in Week Six as I used purple tones in the last tonal task. Eventually, I reverted back to cool and warm tones as part of this week’s tasks. My character concepts were a redesign of Natasha’s ‘Miner’ character (below) who lives in the ‘Caverns of Confusion’. For the task of the treatment of light on objects in our world, the gelatinous Miners are a perfect subject and a texture I have not practiced painting before.

Lighting reference from Carlos Huante (see in ART REFERENCES), his transparent character concepts were helpful in treatment of light (specular highlight) on the smooth transparent Miners. He was also referenced to us in class in Week Six.

(above) Cool Tonals

(above) Landscape Design – Last minute attempts at connecting my work to Sudipta and Megan’s landscape designs. Slimy and visceral, mirroring the characters. Trypophobic caverns creating a sickening response from the viewer.

(above) Thumbnail drawings for characters were brought up in class in a video from ‘Gnoman Workshop’. The artist’s sketches were very similar to Sudipta’s style that he showed our group. My own were another last minute attempt to match Matthias’ character designs and personal practise. Again, my attempts were overall unsuccessful.

ART REFERENCE

The ‘Interstellar’ location was an intention for the ‘Caverns of Confusion’ to not look like a cave on earth. I brought this to the group early in the process but I received no feedback on it after sharing:

Behind the scenes – how production designer Nathan Crowley imagined a different world:

Notes on the Behind the Scenes I found relevant to us:

(below ) Art references and shot analysis. I attempted to create some kind of objective/narrative for the Caverns to illustrate but we never got to that point of execution.